Material shelf · tongs, trays, jugs and dried pulses · 9 activities
Kitchen and Pantry Items
Nine activities that run on things already in a kitchen: a pair of tongs, a sponge, an ice cube tray, two small jugs and whatever dried pulse is in the cupboard.
The pantry half of this shelf is really about the size of the thing being picked up, so pick the pulse to match the hand. A butter bean is 15 to 20 mm and sits between a thumb and one finger without being fiddly. A chickpea is about 8 mm, round and hard, so it needs a real grip and it rolls when it lands, which is why it is the step up. Lentils and rice are for pouring rather than picking.
Short tongs beat long ones, and by a long way. A spring pair of 15 to 20 cm puts the tips close to the hand, so a wobble at the hand is a small wobble at the tip; barbecue tongs turn a centimetre at the hand into three at the tip. Sugar tongs, salad servers held near the tip, or a wooden clothes peg all give the same squeeze. On tweezers, flat blunt tips hold a round chickpea and slanted cosmetic points skid off it.
What the pieces go into decides the difficulty more than the tool does. A rigid ice cube tray has cups about 3 cm across and stays put while the tongs push down into it; a bun tin's cups are about 6 cm and take much bigger things; twelve milk bottle caps taped to a card make the hardest version and cost nothing. A floppy silicone tray tips up as soon as the tongs lean on one end.
One thing here is worth choosing at the shop, and it is soap. Plain, soft, cheap white bars carve; hard translucent bars chip and glycerine tears. Buy two, because one will break, and a spare on the table turns a disaster into a shrug.
The nine
Ordered by the age they suit best. Each line gives the setup time, the play time and whether anything has to be bought.
- Kitchen Tongs and Ice Tray Transfer Your child picks up a cotton wool ball with kitchen tongs, carries it across the table and drops it into an ice cube tray, twelve cups in a row. no setup · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Sponge Squeezing Your child soaks a sponge in one bowl, carries it dripping to the other, and squeezes it out with both hands until the first bowl is empty. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Water Pouring and Transfer Your child pours water from one small jug into another, and then back again, and again, until the table is wet. 3 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Straw Blow Ping Pong Race Your child blows a ping pong ball across the table through a straw, and races it to a strip of tape at the far end. no setup · under 5 min · household only
- Tweezer Transfer Challenge Your child lifts dried chickpeas one at a time with a pair of tweezers and puts each one into its own small well. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Egg Carton Counting Grid Your child reads the number written in the bottom of an egg carton cup and drops in exactly that many beans, one at a time, twelve cups in a row. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
- Weighted Pod Sorting Your child picks up two pots that look exactly alike, decides which one is heavier, and keeps going until all ten are in pairs. 15 min, once · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Balance Beam Coin Carry Your child walks a taped line heel to toe carrying a small stack of coins on a saucer, and discovers that the only way across is slowly. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Soap Carving and Safe Whittling Your child cuts a shape out of a bar of soap with a blunt tool, slowly, and the shavings go everywhere. 5 min · 20 to 40 min · household only
Three of these put water on the table as well, and those are gathered on the water shelf with the amounts that keep a spill to a wipe.